Education beef. (no, not cows...except in the sense of "don't have a...")

O.K., so the title of my 'blog is supposed to refer to Permaculture ethics, but today, I am looking at education, an important aspect of "Care of People."
I could look at all sorts of issues here: schools saying they have a "student lead curriculum," students being (often wrongly) drugged to modify their behaviour, schools which emphasise that they use "individualised learning programs"...
Beef 1. All students are individuals. (that covers all the three things mentioned above. I may expand later.)
Beef 2. Performing monkeys and language education.
I am a language teacher. I speak a little German, Indonesian and Chinese. I have a university degree that includes a minor (although mot recognised as such by the university, they only recognise majors) in Linguistics. So, why would I not be anooyed with a principal who wants to keep my daughter back in Prep on the basis of her language skills? (He thinks she can't read.)
Point one: Bilingual children (although that is a little bit of a stretch) often develop certain language skills behind monolingual children, but take the final step more suddenly: for example, a bilingual child will often start speaking later, but is more liklely to START with complete sentences then individual words.
Liora CAN read. She is impatient, and would rather guess a word than slow down and work it out. But I can read her a German picture story book, and she can tell me in English the basics of the story.
The problem we have with the school, is that Liora is shy. She will "perform" on things she knows she can do well, but will flatly refuse to do something she is scared of (climbing a ladder for example), lacks confidence in (reading for example) has not done outside of home before (saying names of hebrew letters for example) or doesn't want to do (using pencils when there are markers available....)
SO!! Performing children, who will confidently read for their teacher, but do not have any of the multitude other skills that Liora has, WILL be advanced to grade one. Shy students will be kept back.
The VELS states "The first challenge for children at school is to socialise and connect with teachers and other students, and such engagement – behavioural, emotional and cognitive – remains critical to success throughout schooling. "
(http://vels.vcaa.vic.edu.au/interpersonal/stages.html accessed 17/12/2010)  I have italicised that last part, because THAT seems to get to the nub of the matter here.  Liora is already shy, and takes time to form new friendship attachments, specially in a large group, like a class.  Holding her back is likely to set her back in terms of this "first challenge" which may prove detrimental to her sucess "throughout schooling."
Liora is being partially homeschooled (hence the plethora of language oportunities to which she is exposed) and was sent to school, after discussions with the principal to determine his willingness to accept a partial enrolment, and with the emphasis that we are doing this PRIMARILY for her social development.
The system needs rebuilduing from the ground up if it can't cater for all students with individual differences as small as these.  Sure, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  But if you've blown a head gasket, a new paint job (such as introducing a "new" national curriculum) won't make a jot of difference.